In 1608, a number of Calvinist or Protestant children were playing near Siluva
when they heard the sound of a woman crying. They looked at a big rock and
suddenly a woman appeared with a child. She was dressed in blue and white and
had red flowing hair. The apparition was reported to their Calvinist ministers
and elders and the ministers and elders allegedly found they could find no
problems with the story. The children all told the same account. The next day a
Calvinist minister Mikola Fiera preached to the people who having heard about
the apparition gathered at the rock. He declared the story to be pure
superstition. Suddenly it is said the apparition appeared at the rock to him and
all the people. Most of the people later decided to learn about Catholicism and
convert. Fr John Kazakevicius was sent by the Church to investigate the
apparition and he became the parish priest. It turned out that a priest was
cured of blindness by touching the rock and he declared that he had hidden a
trunk of mass vessels and vestments and missals and sacred items below the rock
decades before after the populace had abandoned the Catholic faith. The bishop
accepted the apparition as authentic and a shrine was created. A picture of the
Madonna and child that was found in the trunk was put on display in the shrine.

The Church was prone to error far more in those days than it is more recently.
For example, it says that during the apparitions of Mary at Banneux in 1933 that
the visionary Beco was tripping and falling and fell into a spring of water. She
then claimed afterwards that the Virgin told her to discover it and fall into
it. The sensible person sees that it was found accidentally and she lied that it
was all planned. Yet the Church regarded those apparitions and the witness as
dependable! If it made such a mess when it accepted the Beco visions it is hard
to trust its opinion of the Siluva ones.